"Can she sew? Can she make blouses? Can she arrange hair fashionably? Can she put on your dress as it ought to be put on? I may as well say at once that I don't intend to take a pale, gawky girl about with me. You must look nice, as you can and will, if you have a proper maid, and I attend to your clothes. Can she alter your dresses when they get a little outré? In short, is the woman a lady's maid at all?"

"She used to be my nurse, and I love her," I answered stoutly.

"I cannot possibly have her back. Don't speak of it again. And now, Heather, I have something else to say. When you address me you are not to call me 'Lady Helen,' you are to say 'Mother.' The fact is, I can't stand sentimental nonsense. Your own mother has been in her grave for many years. If I am to act as a mother to you, I intend to have the title. Now say the word; say this—say, 'Please, mother, may I go upstairs to my private sitting-room, and may I leave you and father alone together?' Say the words, Heather."

I turned very cold, and I have no doubt my face was white.

"Yes, Heather, say the words," cried father.

His blue eyes were extremely bright, and there was a spot of vivid colour on both his cheeks. He looked at me with such a world of longing, such an expression of almost fear, that for his sake I gave in.

"I will do what you wish for my father's sake," I said, slowly. "I am not your child, and you are not my mother. My mother is in her grave, and when she lived her name was Grayson, not Dalrymple; but if it makes father happy for me to say 'mother,' I will say it."

"It makes me most oppressively happy, my little Heather," cried my father.

"Then I will do it for you, Daddy," I said.

Lady Helen frowned at me. I went slowly out of the room.

CHAPTER IX

It is doubtless the law of life to get, more or less quickly, according to one's nature, accustomed to everything. In about six weeks I, who had lived so quietly with Aunt Penelope, had settled down to my new existence. I was spoken of as Lady Helen's daughter, and invariably addressed as Miss Dalrymple. I was dressed according to Lady Helen's wishes, and I was taken here, there, and everywhere. What I did notice, however, was that although Lady Helen, my father, and I went to numerous concerts, and although Lady Helen had her box 

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